Thank you for all the reviews - and for those on Ao3 who pointed out that I forgot to have them do a clone check. My bad! I'll remedy that next chapter, but both Hawks and Tokoyami are currently real.
This chapter occurs at the same time as Chapter 7. All of Tokoyami's POV chapters so far (3-7) were extensions of his essays. Since he knew Dabi would read everything (and because he's ashamed of some parts), Tokoyami was an unreliable narrator. In this chapter, he tells the truth.
Chapter 11: Rage
3 days ago
After Twice and Dabi leave him alone to freeze, this is what Tokoyami's journal says: I remember little of the following hours. Left alone with only the light and Dark Shadow for company, I slept. When I woke, I took to meditation as an escape from hunger, thirst, and pain.
This is what happens:
Tokoyami does not sleep long, if at all. The encounter with Twice and Dabi left him full of uncomfortable questions. Why hasn't anyone come for him? His "death" was publicized less than a week ago. Surely there was enough time for someone to reach him before that. Japan's top pro heroes organized and executed a plan for Bakugo's rescue within 48 hours of his disappearance from the summer training camp. In that same period, Tokoyami's classmates enacted a surprisingly successful plan of their own. Yet he has heard nothing at all from the pros or from his friends.
Tokoyami doesn't want his friends to get hurt or run into trouble on his behalf, of course, but – have they even tried? Do they care that he's gone? They were willing to break every rule in the book for Bakugo; Bakugo, who regularly hurls insults at his classmates and who, by some accounts, bullied Midoriya mercilessly in their youth.
"Do you think it's because I scare them?" Dark Shadow asks. His guilt echoes through Tokoyami's skull.
"It's not you – not just you, anyway," Tokoyami thinks. "Few have ever wished to befriend us before, I don't know why I thought that could change. I'm morbid, I'm pretentious, and I can't control my quirk. They've left us behind."
"Left us for dead," Dark Shadow says. His voice grows deeper as Tokoyami's bitter anger infects him.
"We're already dead," Tokoyami mutters aloud. "The League is right. Now that everyone thinks we're dead they'll forget us. We aren't important. There are a hundred students at U.A. who are stronger, smarter, and faster than us. We don't matter. We never did."
"We matter to me," Dark Shadow replies. "I don't want us to die. We have more to do."
"More of what?" Tokoyami wonders. "We aren't heroes; we can't even rescue ourselves. What does that leave, villainy? As if I would join the ones who kidnapped me, who hurt me – and even they don't want me! This was a mistake. An accident. We are but a cruel twist of fate."
"Then we can be cruel in return," Dark Shadow rumbles.
Tokoyami shakes his head, trying to rid himself of his dark thoughts. "No. No, I don't want that. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want…" He stops, his fingers curling into a fist. "I want to go home. I want mom and dad. I want my bed and my room and my life. I'm so sick of this place!"
Tokoyami punches the cot, and a sliver of dark energy wraps around his knuckles. The thin mattress trembles under the force.
"I will get us home," Dark Shadow declares. "I will protect you when no one else will. They want to see power. Let's show them. Let me out!"
Tokoyami shakes his head. "It won't work. The lights are too bright."
"I'll destroy them! We'll destroy them together, and anything else that stands in our way."
Even with all of the lights on Tokoyami can feel his quirk stir beneath his skin, threatening to engulf him. He stumbles to his feet. "I can't let you. Someone could get hurt."
"If they had come sooner, if someone had saved us, then you would never have been hurt," says Dark Shadow. "Let me make them suffer instead. Let me fight, Fumikage! Let me out! Let me out let me out let me-"
"Stop it!" Tokoyami puts his hands over his ears, even though he knows it will do nothing to block out the voice inside his own head. He cannot allow his emotions get the better of him, or his own personal demon will get loose. On the other hand…what has he got to lose? He's locked alone in a brightly lit room. There's no one here he needs to protect.
"Yessss. Nothing, we've got nothing but us. I am done waiting!"Dark Shadow roars, his head briefly bursting from Tokoyami's torso before the lights force him back in.
"It's useless," Tokoyami insists. "We're trapped. We're going to die here. We'll never see home again, and no one will even know what happened to us."
"No! We LIVE!"
"Didn't you see the video? We're ALREADY DEAD! We're dead, no one is coming, and everything I do here is useless!" Tokoyami bellows. He sweeps his hand across the table, scattering the pages of his writing across the floor. Fed by his rage, Dark Shadow is able to manifest claws. He flips over the table, and together they hurl it across the room. Tokoyami reaches for the chair next, and Dark Shadow claws at it before they throw it at the nearest wall. They do the same with everything else in the room that isn't nailed down, screaming as they tear it all apart.
It doesn't take long for the thud of footsteps to reach their door. Someone curses as they struggle with the lock, then fling the door open. Tokoyami picks up the closest item and tosses it. Twice narrowly avoids getting smacked in the head with a thesaurus.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell are you doing, kid? This is a shitty escape attempt if that's what this is. It has merit!" Twice says.
Tokoyami roars in a voice that is not entirely his own. "How would we ever escape? You impede us at every turn, you hurt us, you leave us with nothing! Everyone has left us!"
"Us?" says Twice. "You and…oh."
"We are two in one. It is always us," says Tokoyami.
"That's no reason to throw a book at my head!" Twice replies. "Throw another!"
"Get out! Leave us alone, like everyone else! LEAVE!" Tokoyami bellows.
The lights flicker. Twice glances around nervously, but stands his ground. "Sure. I don't think I can do that. That's League property you're damaging. You're supposed to be rethinking your choices, not redecorating."
Tokoyami glares at him, and then realizes there's a shadow falling across the floor from the hallway: Twice left the door open.
With a cry of fury Tokoyami lunges at Twice, catching him off guard and knocking him off of his feet. The two grapple on the floor until Spinner appears in the doorway. He rushes forward and kicks at Tokoyami's side until he loses his grip. Twice flips him over onto his back and slams him against the tiles.
Tokoyami struggles against Twice's hold, but he's outnumbered now and weakened by light, pain, and hunger. Tears of frustration soak into his feathers, and with his options dwindling he starts banging the back of his head against the ground.
"Hey, stop that!" Twice shouts. He wraps his arms around Tokyami's entire upper body, enveloping him in the closest thing to a hug Tokoyami's felt in a month. "Shigaraki will be really angry if we let you bash your brains out."
"Shigaraki will be really angry that you almost let him escape," Spinner adds.
"You think so? I did no such thing!" Twice replies.
"Yeah, you did, and it's on camer-" Spinner starts to gesture toward the camera in the corner of the room, only to see that it was knocked off the wall during Tokoyami's fit of rage. "Shit. Well, anyway, Shigaraki's going to be really angry at someone, and I don't want it to be me. I told you we should have just let him throw a tantrum," says Spinner.
"He could have hurt himself!" Twice argues.
"Yeah, but…aren't we torturing him? I don't think this is how torture works," says Spinner.
"Just help me! Leave if that's how you feel," says Twice.
Spinner shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. He reaches toward them, then hesitates and pulls his hand back. "What should I do?"
"Is the chair broken? We sit him down, watch him so he doesn't hurt himself," says Twice. "We stand him up and beat him!"
Spinner rights the toppled chair and drags it over. He wiggles it and examines the arms and legs. "Seems okay. It's pretty sturdy. Steel, I think."
All Tokoyami's energy was drained in that single outburst. He doesn't fight back as Twice and Spinner pull him up and set him in the chair. He squeezes his eyes shut and bows his head. He shouldn't be crying in front of Twice and Spinner, letting them see how weak and vulnerable he is. Then again, what does it matter? These villains are the only ones who even know he's alive.
"I'm sorry, Fumi. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough," Dark Shadow thinks.
"I'm sorry, too."
Twice squats down in front of him, attempting to peer at his face. "Hey, Tsukuyomi. You hurt?"
Spinner rolls his eyes. "Again, that's kind of the point of torture. Of course he's hurt."
"Really? I know that!" Twice snaps. "But I don't think he does. Kid, you're not supposed to torture yourself! You're supposed to take it out on other people."
Tokoyami knows he's broken now. He laughs. "What a mad banquet of darkness."
"Exactly! I have no idea what that means," says Twice.
"It means that I've been kidnapped, beaten, and betrayed, and the only ones who have shown any concern are my jailors. It's cold comfort," Tokoyami replies. "I take it the others are out, or I would be facing a very different set of consequences."
"You still might," Spinner says. "But yeah, it's just us. So, are you going to tell us what that was, exactly?"
"I've been trapped for weeks, constantly questioned, and now I find out that the world has taken me for dead. Forgive me for venting my frustrations," Tokoyami drawls.
Spinner sighs and crosses his arms. "I tried to warn you. Those heroes you worship will pay lip service to you as long as it makes them look noble and pacifies the sheep who follow them. But the minute it dies down they'll forget about you. They don't really care about anyone but themselves."
"That's not true," Tokoyami says, and even he recognizes how unconvinced he sounds.
"Then where are they?" Dark Shadow whispers.
"You know it is," says Twice, his voice surprisingly gentle. "You just don't want to admit that we're right. We've all been abandoned here, and we have to rescue ourselves."
"Only true heroes rescue people like us," says Spinner. "Maybe All Might will come for you after all. Stain believed him worthy, so he might–"
Tokoyami cuts him off with a bitter retort. "No, he won't. All Might has his favorites, and I'm not one of them."
"Favorites?" Spinner asks.
"He spends most of his time with a few strong students. He even trains them outside of class time. Everyone knows it. The whole school thinks he's attached to 1-A, but that attachment has never truly included all of us. I didn't really care about it until now. Jealousy is petty," Tokoyami explains.
"Jealousy is a terrible thing. Jealousy is my favorite!" says Twice. "It keeps you wanting more and more, it forces you to improve. The only way to know for sure if you're real is to be better than you and everyone else!"
"Sometimes I think Bakugo would have done well with you after all," Tokoyami mutters. "He's changed, but he still seems to agree with you."
"That's the exploding kid, right? The one who led the pros straight to us." Spinner pauses, head cocking to one side as he looks at Tokoyami. "Hey. How do you think they found us so fast that time?"
A fresh wave of bitter rage floods Tokoyami, and he digs his nails into the arm of the chair. "Last time one of my classmates made a tracking device, and another attached it to a nomu in the woods. That's how they knew where the lab was. As for the place you kept Bakugo…I'm not sure."
"That's how they found the lab?!" Twice exclaims. "Wow, thanks. That's been driving me nuts for months."
"You'd think the pros would have learned from that," Spinner says. "You know, put a tracker on your backpacks or something."
"They did," Tokoyami replies. "They're in our student IDs, but they only activate if there's an emergency. I thought it was a bit excessive until…well, until I ended up here."
Twice laughs. "Shigaraki is going to love that! He'll hate it. He accidentally destroyed your ID, you know. He got too excited and put his pinky down."
"Oh? I thought you'd left it with my clothes or something, to throw them off track," says Tokoyami. He can't decide if it's heartening to know that the pros couldn't have been using it to track him all this time or devastating that the safety measure was thwarted by mere chance.
"We didn't do anything with your clothes. That was Dabi and—"
"What the hell is going on here?!"
All three of them turn to see Shigaraki in the doorway, glaring them down through the fingers of the hand on his face. Toga bounces at his side. "Oooh, somebody's in trouble!"
"Just having a chat, boss!" Spinner quickly replies.
"We're bonding! We're arguing," says Twice. "Did you know U.A. student IDs have trackers in them? If you hadn't decayed Tsukuyomi's, we might all be in Tartarus right now!"
It's hard to tell with the hand in the way, but Shigaraki soundssurprised. "You actually got the brat talking? What's his weakness?"
A cold wave of horror sends goosebumps over Tokoyami's skin. "What? No, I wasn't…I didn't mean to…"
It's too late. Tokoyami allowed himself to be distracted by his own despair and taken in by Twice and Spinner's empathy. That is his weakness: People who treat him with an ounce of kindness, even after they've beaten him. He feels like a fool.
"You tricked me!" he shouts.
"Not at all! A little bit," Twice replies. "But we didn't lie!"
"What else has he said?" Shigaraki asks eagerly.
"Some disappointing stuff about All Might. Apparently he has favorites, just like every other fake," says Spinner.
"Favorites, really? And who would that be?" Shigaraki asks, directing his attention to Tokoyami.
Tokoyami glares at Shigaraki. He can feel Dark Shadow do the same, sharing his eyes. "You will not get another word from me. You have taken advantage of my distress, and I will not allow it to happen again. I should have remembered that I am prisoner here."
"You don't have to be a prisoner," Spinner says quietly. "We don't have to hurt you."
"You're one of us already, one of the abandoned. Why protect the people who left you behind?" Twice adds.
Even Toga chimes in, offering him a dark smile and flipping a knife in her hand. "We take care of our own. And when we can't, we avenge them ten times over."
"All those people who never really cared for you, all the ones who didn't try to find you, the ones who made you an outcast because of your power. We could make them see what they missed. Show them what it really means to be afraid," says Twice.
"You could be a real hero. Together we would save people like us and get rid of all those fakes. Even All Might," says Spinner.
"Doesn't that sound like fun?" Toga says.
Later, this is the moment Tokoyami will regret the most. The thing he cannot write, no matter how hard he tries, is not the information he gave the League so carelessly, but the fact that he hesitates.
"We could be free," Dark Shadow thinks.
"You'd let me go without the lights?" Tokoyami asks slowly.
"No one would ever put you in a box again," Shigaraki promises. "With us, you could unleash your true potential."
Tokoyami looks from face to face: Twice's hidden by a mask, Spinner's open and sincere, Toga's excited, and Shigaraki's eager behind that hand. A dead hand sliced off at the wrist, one that might have belonged to someone trying to protect a person they loved. In his mind's eye the hand gains color and the wrist bleeds, and Tokoyami can see the moment Shoji shielded him from Moonfish. Shoji didn't abandon him that night, even when Tokoyami lost control and begged him too. Tokoyami has never been able to repay him, until now.
"No," he says, his voice breaking on the word. He swallows, and it comes easier. "No. I refuse. There are still people in this world worth protecting from the likes of you."
"No one will thank you for it," Spinner warns him.
"A real hero does not require recognition for their actions," Tokoyami replies. "I am only sorry I did not remember that sooner."
"What a pity," says Shigaraki. He scratches at his neck. "I guess it can't be helped. Just remember: we gave you a chance. You're the one who refused to take it."
He turns to leave. Twice calls after him, "Hey, boss! What about the room?"
"Leave it. We're not cleaning up after a birdy who made a mess of his own cage," Shigaraki replies. "Just get the camera up and running again."